Setsu-den-kyu

The setsu-den-kyu candle is shaped like a conventional incandescent light-bulb, and designed to burn for 24 hours. As it consumes itself, one gets a sense of just how much electricity its use has saved.

Many of the projects in which Dentsu Design Ninja has been involved were a response to the consequences of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. Electricity consumption needed to come down. Minds were changing, had to change; behavior too.

The Setsu-den-kyu candle is one symbolic response to those events and their aftermath. The candle is designed to burn for 24 hours. That's 24 hours in which an ordinary lightbulb needn't be used. The burn-down of the candle is a visual gauge of what is being saved.

The candle was featured in print and online media, and continues to be available for purchase in retail and online shops.

Partners were the Kameyama Candle House, and designer Sakiko Nagasuna, then a student at Kyoto Industrial Textile University.